Saturday, November 12, 2005

A typical T1 circuit is only 1.5 megabits per second. A typical digital 3 minute song is 3 megaBYTES or 24 megabits in size. A typical digital photo is about 2 megaBYTES or 16 megabits. The typical Power Point presentation is 10 megaBYTES in size or 80 megabits. If 3 or more people in the office were to email a power point presentation at the same time the office internet connection would slow to a crawl for 3 or more minutes. This does not take into account all the spam email clogging up your Internet connection while attempting to reach your mail server. Nor does it take into account many other new bandwidth hogging applications that others in office are using such as monitoring their nanny cam at home, watching MarketWatch , CNN streaming video channels, or uploading a photo album to a relative. Everyday there are new bandwidth intensive applications being developed for the Internet.

It's obvious that the common T1 connection can't handle this growth. Your best option is to research application of a DS3 bandwidth solution.

A DS3 (sometimes referred to as a T3 or E3) is a leased private dedicated line that goes directly from your office to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). A T3/DS3 connection is equivalent to 28 T1/DS1 connections and uses digital signals on fiber-optic cable at speeds of 45 million bps (bits per second) or 44.736 megabits per second. Generally this type of dedicated line is for 50-100+ users and/or high bandwidth applications. T3/DS3 connections can also be used for point to point access (direct connection between 2 business sites).

As a standard used in the North American and Japanese marketplaces, a DS3 can handle 672, 64Kbps voice conversations or one video data channel. The DS3 line has enough bandwidth to transmit full-motion real-time videos and very large databases over a busy network. Generally a DS3 line would be installed as a major networking channel for a large corporation, research facility, or university with high volume network traffic. But there are multiple smaller scale business uses also....particularly when multiple locations are involved. Bandwidth for a Fractional T3, up to a full T3, generally run at speeds between 6 Mbps through 45 Mbps.

A DS3 connection (or T3 connection), is great for companies with large bandwidth needs. It is especially useful as the backbone for Disaster Recovery systems. If your company needs computer access for 50 + users, or needs to run high bandwidth applications like video conferencing, you are likely in the market for a T3/DS3 connection. A T3/DS3 line is also a viable solution for companies looking to resell bandwidth to their customers.

The common T1 line can handle 24 simultaneous voice calls or a high speed Internet connection speed of 1.54 Mbps. This is usually the solution of choice for small to mid size businesses. A DS3 line can handle 672 simultaneous voice calls or provide a high speed Internet connection of 45 Mbps. The T3/DS3 is typically used by high end data and voice customers as it is the equivalent of 28 T1 lines or 672 voice lines.

Most DS3 circuits are "fractional", meaning a portion of the circuit. A DS3 is capable of 45 megabits per second. Fractional DS3s are usually, 8 megabit per second which is equal to about five (5) T1s. Today this is more than fast enough for most all business needs.

The cost of the DS3 circuit is always mileage based. Generally speaking the farther the distance from your ISPs Central Office (CO) connection the more it will cost. On top of that there is often a bandwidth usage charge.

DS3 service can be deployed for a wide variety of applications. The most common uses are DS3 point-to-point (tying 2 distinct business locations together), DS3 internet (data), DS3 frame relay, DS3 voice, and DS3 VPN. The pricing for these connections varies widely depending on the carrier, location of service and the application for which the connection is being used. Using a free rate quote research service such as "DS3 Bandwidth" will allow you to obtain current pricing for your location.